Chatting with Rob osler

Few characters feel as real—or grab my heart—as much as Harriet did. Thank you for sharing her (and this story) with the readers of Le Coeur de l’Artiste.

What first inspired The Case of the Missing Maid—was it the mystery, the setting, or the desire to create Harriet herself?
The inspiration for The Case of the Missing Maid was the character Harriet Morrow. I grew up in a household with just my mom and sister, and I was eager to create a character who embodied my mom’s can-do, plucky spirit. The other two adult family members in my life at the time were Harriet Pruatt, my grandmother, and Vera Morrow, my great aunt. Harriet is three times an outsider. First, she is simply a woman in 1898 who aspires to a professional career outside the home. Second, she has the audacity to believe herself capable of performing a job nearly universally thought to be suitable only for a man. And thirdly, as a gay man, I was interested in having Harriet be a lesbian so I could explore what life might be like for a queer person at the turn of the twentieth century.

The premise taps into a classic trope—the missing domestic worker—but Harriet elevates it. She not only drives the investigation, she pulls the reader along with her. Was your intention to keep the plot simple and let the character carry the complexity? Do you see yourself as more character-driven than plot-driven?
At the core of every good mystery are a crime, suspects, and an investigation. While I expend much effort to create a solid mystery, it is the layers of supporting plot lines – filling out and completing a character’s world – that turn a good mystery into a good story. I have found that once I have dialed in a character, I can place them into a scene and follow their thinking, movements, and reactions. In sum, I am plot-driven from an outlining perspective, but character-driven from a storytelling perspective.

While the title suggests a straightforward mystery, the story offers deeper layers—beyond Harriet and beyond the case. What did you hope readers would take away besides a satisfying puzzle?
I have a two-part answer. First, with the series’ setting in the Progressive Era, a time when a stable middle class sought to address many of society’s most pressing ills, I hope readers will draw comparisons from then to now, both appreciating our progress and lamenting how far we still have to go. Secondly, I hope readers will root for Harriet and grow to admire her, while appreciating her queerness is only one of the many things that make Harriet Harriet; it alone does not define her.

Setting often works quietly in the background, yet shapes everything. How does the environment influence both the investigation and Harriet’s perspective?
At the time of the story, Chicago was home to approximately 1.7 million people, nearly three-quarters of them immigrants or the children of immigrants. The city was the fastest-growing in the world and America’s second-largest. The setting of Chicago gives Harriet a bursting-at-the-seams metropolis dotted with distinctive ethnic communities to explore and investigate. And with two thousand miles of flat, paved roadways, moving around by her trusty Victoria Overman bicycle made for efficient travel.

You clearly did your homework on household dynamics, and I appreciated the resource list you included. How did you begin your research, and at what point did you know you had enough?
I start by reading several books specific to the time period and to the issues addressed in the story. I supplement that effort with online research and outreach to organizations such as the Chicago Historical Society, specialized libraries, and subject matter authorities. I try to include only as much description as necessary to enable a reader to visualize the scene without burdening them with too much extraneous detail.

What was the most challenging part of structuring the reveal—deciding what to hold back and what to let slip?
 With any play-fair mystery, an author tries to give the reader just enough information to allow them to solve the case before or alongside the detective. I withhold what I can, but provide what a reader requires.
 
How do you balance planting fair clues while still preserving that wonderful sense of surprise?
I addressed this in the preceding question, but I’ll add that what is revealed along the way is often nestled among other information, and that by planting red herrings, sifting relevant information from the rest can be trickier.

What techniques do you use to maintain tension in quieter scenes where there isn’t overt action?
Human relationships are the source of all drama. I create tension between people on a personal level, be it family, colleagues, friends, or enemies.

Dialogue in your work carries both information and subtext. How do you craft conversations that reveal just enough—without giving the game away?
People often lie or withhold just enough of the full story to tell a tale they prefer to be true. Once I know a character’s motivation in a scene and how they want the information to land, I can craft dialogue to reflect that.

How do you decide which point of view best serves a scene, especially in a mystery where perspective controls what the reader knows?
I use close third because I want a degree of distance from Harriet. It is a story about her, opposed to her story.

In a genre with well-loved expectations, how do you push against clichés while still giving readers what they came for?
I believe it starts with reading enough in the genre to know the most common clichés. Only then can I try to avoid them. That said, certain genre cliches can be story elements that some readers find satisfying. When I do confront them in my writing, I strive to give them a fresh, unexpected twist.

What is your approach to writing an ending that feels both surprising and inevitable—the kind readers can’t quite predict but fully believe?
Most readers desire an ending that ties up all the loose ends, delivers justice, and leaves the hero in pretty good shape. For me, the ending is the easiest of all parts of a book. The hard work is done on pages one through 275, in which I’ve set up the mystery, introduced the suspects and other characters, planted clues alongside red herrings, layered in tension, conflict, ambition, and dreams. As the saying goes: “If you don’t know your destination, how will you get there?” With a series, however, the ending should signal a fresh beginning, leaning into the next book.

And finally—how many books do you see for Harriet? Can you give us a hint about what’s next for her?
There are six books under contract. The third, The Case of the Swindled Suffragist, comes out early next year, followed in early 2028 by The Case of the Silenced Stevedore.

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